No bond for fatal shooting suspect

Published: Monday, September 9, 2013 at 04:26 PM.

Brown said Smith offered no resistance and followed all law enforcement directions during his arrest.

“He resisted none at all,” Brown said. “Which it would have just been so much more in his favor if he had just come on in, because he didn’t fight, he didn’t resist.”

Brown said investigators received tips that led to Smith’s arrest from those who were in the general “whereabouts of where Mr. Sherodnie had been laying his head” and from others concerned about his welfare.

“The thing these people who get in trouble need to understand is their family’s concerned,” he said. “Your family is going to encourage you to turn yourself in, because they know it’s going to happen sooner or later, and they don’t want to see their loved one hurt.”

That’s part of the message he has for all criminals in Onslow County: “That no matter how foolish or hideous what you’ve done is, you’re going to have to face the judicial system somewhere down the road with it, so go ahead and do the initiative and make everything that can happen after that positive rather than negative.”

The suspect in a fatal shooting earlier this month is being held without bond after being taken into custody this week.

Sherodnie Smith, 27, of Roosevelt Road in Jacksonville, made his first appearance in court shortly after 10 a.m. Monday morning at the Onslow County District Courthouse on an open count of murder connected to the fatal shooting over the Labor Day weekend of Tiaseer Rambert, 37, of Jacksonville.

Rambert died Sept. 1 in the parking lot of the former Stratusphere Entertainment night club off Gum Branch Road after bleeding out from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, according to his death certificate. Rambert, who worked construction, leaves behind a wife Conbreshia Rambert, four children, parents and three siblings.

Smith, who was issued no bond at Monday’s hearing, elected to hire his own attorney. His preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 30.

Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown told The Daily News that Smith was arrested around midnight Monday at a local hotel, later identified by other officials connected to the investigation as the Triangle Motor Inn. The JPD assisted in Smith’s arrest, and Brown said no one was injured during the arrest.

“We’ve known for a while that we were right on his heels,” Brown said. Last week the OCSO publicly asked Smith to turn himself in, because Brown said the sheriff’s deputies leading the investigation, Det. Jonathan Lincoln and Det. Todd McAllister, were close to finding him anyway.

Brown said Smith offered no resistance and followed all law enforcement directions during his arrest.

“He resisted none at all,” Brown said. “Which it would have just been so much more in his favor if he had just come on in, because he didn’t fight, he didn’t resist.”

Brown said investigators received tips that led to Smith’s arrest from those who were in the general “whereabouts of where Mr. Sherodnie had been laying his head” and from others concerned about his welfare.

“The thing these people who get in trouble need to understand is their family’s concerned,” he said. “Your family is going to encourage you to turn yourself in, because they know it’s going to happen sooner or later, and they don’t want to see their loved one hurt.”

That’s part of the message he has for all criminals in Onslow County: “That no matter how foolish or hideous what you’ve done is, you’re going to have to face the judicial system somewhere down the road with it, so go ahead and do the initiative and make everything that can happen after that positive rather than negative.”

Brown said that despite Smith’s arrest, the investigation into Ramseer’s death is not over.

He declined to comment on a possible motive or what Smith had been doing and where he had been the eight days he had been on the run.

“I can just about wager you that his right shoulder or his left shoulder was sore from looking behind him,” Brown said. “... It’s just a continuous torment of knowing that any time, any place, there you are confronted by authorities, law enforcement saying, ‘You’re under arrest.’”